Jin Empire ( 1115-1234) By: Cameron Buckles

In 1125 the Ruzhen a monchurian people conquered the Liao Empire and renamed it "Jin" the "Golden Empire"

"S.P.R.I.T.E"

• Social: dynasty that ruled an empire formed by the tangus Juchen tribes of manchuria. It covered much of inner asia and all of northern china. Like the Liao, an earlier inner asian dynasty, the Juchen maintained a chinease style bureacracy to rule over the southern part of there conquests and a tribal state to rule in Inner asia. concious of preserving their ethnic identity, they maintained, their language, developed their own script, and banned chinease cloths and customs from their army.

• Political: Jin Dynasty was successively reined by 11 emperors. Established by the last of the Western Jin and governing a limited area lying to the South of Yangtze River, the Eastern Jin Dynasty was recorded as a single dynasty in Chinese history.The Jin government, abolishing the agrarian colonies, tried everything to bring the peasants back to their homelands. Leaving one's land to engage in merchandise was prohibited. The household tax system was based on the demilitarization of the former agrarian colonies. Peasants had furthermore no duty to serve in the infantry ranks, and this measure generally contributed to a rising agricultural production because farmers could more consistently engage in working the fields. The first kind of tax was the tax in kind that consisted in silk and brocade that every person had to deliver to the state, depending on gender and age. But in fact, also the size of the owned land, the size of the farm, the number of the owned trees and the production rate was considered too when levying the nine degrees of tax in kind.

• Religion: The Jurchen originally belevied in natural spirits. As a medium between the average population and the world of ghosts and spirits served a Chinese man with the sinification of the Jurchen and the foundation of the Jin empire. Buddhism became the prelevant religion of the Jin empire. The impressive monasteries, statues and ceremonies were better suitable for a state religion than shamanism. In Beijing the Monastery Minzhong served as the state monastery of the Jin emperors, later the Dayansheng and Dayongan

• Intellectual: The Jurchen were a sedentary, Tangus speaking people living in Manchuria, and southwestern Siberia. In the eleventh century there were two groups of the JurchenOne was a little assimilated group of "raw" tribesmen living more or less the traditional life. The other was the "cooked" Jurchen, who had the Kitan, the dominant political group at that time in north China and rulers of the Liao dynasty, and with the many Chinese ruled by the Kitan.

• Trade/ Technology: the central capital Modern Beijing had three large markets where products from all over the country were sold. Waterways were an important traffic tool, and emperor Jin Shizong had reconstructed some old canals to the central capital. With the neighboring states, like the southern song, merchants traded through border markets. The valued import goods were tea and coin metal from song china, and horses from the Tangut empire of Western Xia. Iron Casting and producing was an important industrial field of the Jin empire, and people were stimulated to dig iron, silver, and gold ores, but were not allowed to cast metal tools by themselves.

• Economic System: China is the worlds oldest continuous major civilization, with written records dating back about 3,500 years and with a 5,000 years being commonly used by Chinese as the age of their civilization. Successive dynasties developed systems of buraucratic control, which gave the agrarian-based Chinese an advantage over neighboring nomadic and mountian dwelling cultures. The development of a state ideology based on Confucianism and a common system of writeing both strenghened Chinese civilization. Politically, china alternated between political union and disunion, and was often conquered by external ethnicities, of which many were eventually assimilated into the Chinese identity.

Basic Beliefs: Buddhism , The Jin empire shared the believe of Confucinism interest in higher hierarchy.

Founder: The Jin dynasty was founded in what would become Northern Manchuria by the Jurchen tribal cheifman Wanyan Agunda.

Example of Text:
Impact: The Jin empire helped china to what a great country it is today by beliefs all the way to inventions that the Chinese still use today.

Important Leaders:

- Jin Taizu (Wanyan Aguda): intitially he was one of the leaders of the Nuzhen tribes. After he unified the whole Nuzhen group. He proclaimed himself emporor and founded the Jin Dynasty in 1115. (1115-1123)
- Jin Taizong (Wanyan Wuqimai): younger brother of Jin Taizu In his reign, Jin defeated Liao (907-1125) and northern song (960-1127) turning the xixia into a subordinate country (1123-1134)
- Jin Xizong ( Wanyan Hela): grandson of Jin Taizu; he was killed by Wanyan Liang (1135-1149)
- Hailing Wong( Wanyan Liang): he moved to the capital of jin to Yanjing (currently Bejing) and then later to Bianjing (currently Kaifeng). He was killed by Jin general fpr escape in the battle with song. (1149-1161)

How it came to power: Succsesfully anialated the Liao Dynasty which had held sway over northern china.

Reason for Fall: the end came when Mongol khan Ogodei(1185-1241) gathered his resources and refocuses Mongol attention on China. The Jin capital was then at Kaifeng. The Mongols assaulted it from several directions. The capital, swollen by refugees, was fored to extremities, and the Jin court fled south to Caizhou, where it attempted to organize further resistance. Kaifeng fell in 1233 and Caizhou in february 1234. The last Jin emperor killed himself.

Links:
- Theobald, Ulrich. "Chinese History Jin Dynasty." CHINAKNOWLEDE- a universal guide for china studies. 2000. 3 Feb. 2009 http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Song/jinn-religion.html.

- Jurchen Jin Dynasty." Book Rags. 3 Feb. 2009 http://www.bookrags.com/research/jurchen-jin-dynasty-ema-03/.

- Gang, Li. "The Splintering of Daoism in the Jin Dynasty." Taoist Culture & Information Centre. 3 Feb. 2009 http://eng.taoism.org.hk/general-daoism/development-of-daoism/pg1-2-3-3.htm.